


Mutants and Mutants: Interrogating Illyan

by Ecarden



Series: Mutants and Mutants [2]
Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Does not go as planned..., Gen, Interrogation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:01:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29570727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ecarden/pseuds/Ecarden
Summary: As Illyan has 'surrendered' the next step is interrogation. They ask the obvious questions and get subtler ones back in turn.
Series: Mutants and Mutants [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2172486
Comments: 10
Kudos: 16





	Mutants and Mutants: Interrogating Illyan

Agent Barbara Farrell looked through the one way glass, examining the man standing in the interrogation room in a loose parade rest. Starting at the top, she worked her way down. His hair was still mostly brown, though greying and thinning. The face under it was thin, but with a bob nose that made him look a little bit boyish. Then came the collar of his forest green uniform, on which were a pair of silver Horus eyes and gold trim, but no other insignia. He had a thin, wiry frame under the uniform. Then she came to the heavy belt on his uniform, from which hung three holsters with visible weapons in them. After pausing a moment there, her eyes continued downward over the green pants, with their red piping to the shiny black riding boots that came up almost to his knees. It was obviously some form of dress uniform, though there were no medals on his chest. She looked to the field agent who’d brought him in, and who was sitting in the room (unlike his compatriots, who were down in medical, or the morgue). 

“Why does this man still have his weapons?”

“He made a convincing argument for why he should be allowed to keep them,” the agent said, lounging in the chair.

“Okay, that sounds super mysterious and all, but I need to know what the fuck actually happened, agent,” she snapped. 

The field agent straightened, “He and the X-Men interfered, he stuck around after the X-Men helped the prisoners escape. He said that he’d thought it was the right thing to do, but then he saw what Wolverine did to us and switched sides. He has some sort of non-lethal weaponry, which was what he used on us. When we threatened to disarm him, he informed us that he’d rigged his more lethal weaponry to explode in a manner which would destroy the entire warehouse and demonstrated what the larger weapon on his right hip can do. It burned a hole right through the cement floor and so far down into the ground that we couldn’t see where it ended, so the threat seemed…possible.”

“Did he say who he is, or where his equipment is from?” 

“He said, he” and the agents voice shifted to mimic a very odd accent, vaguely eastern European, or Russian, but off from either, “better hold back something for the interrogators to pry out. Folks never believe freely given information.”

She nodded to herself, though the agent took it as a dismissal and relaxed again. No sense in wasting any more time. Without any further hesitation, she gathered up some files at quasi-random and headed into the room. As she opened the door, she had one of the folders open in front of her, as if she was reading from it, then glanced up and found herself staring into almost colorless eyes. Despite her self-control she flinched as she found herself a teenager caught sneaking out of her bedroom window again. That was not helped by the fact that he was several inches taller than her own 5’4”. She re-evaluated her path instantly. Her usual preferred tactic of ‘just a short, dumpy little secretary, you can definitely intimidate me and thereby reveal everything about yourself,’ was not going to work here.

Training reasserted itself and she moved forward, taking a bolted-down metal chair on one side of the equally-bolted-down metal table, which was the only other furniture in the room. “Sit,” she ordered.

He stared back at her for a moment, then gave a wintery smile as he sat. “Good. Take possession of the space. The files are a mistake however. You lack sufficient information for them to be relevant and you are insufficiently haggard to actually be running from interrogation to interrogation. You are not going to be able to make me underestimate my value, or overestimate your knowledge, given what I witnessed of your personnel.”

She straightened her almost randomly chosen files, before looking back up at him, buying time, in a maneuver she saw he recognized. Wherever he came from, he’d been through training much like her own. “Well, then, why don’t you tell me what you’re going to tell me.”

“Certainly. I am Simon Illyan. I belong to an organization known as Barrayaran Imperial Security. At first I assumed I had somehow been teleported here, then somehow transported through time, in fact, I appear to have been brought here from another dimension. Based on what little I’ve learned since arriving, it appears likely that this is the result of what is known locally as a mutant. This mutant was carried off by a local terrorist group known as the X-Men, after murdering a number of your soldiers.”

“The same X-Men you assisted by incapacitating a number of Division agents?”

“Assuming Division refers to the troops with MRD on their uniform, then I stunned them unconscious, however that was in self-defense, not in aid of the X-Men. Your troops do not react well, in either sense of the word, to armed men appearing out of nowhere.”

She paused and went off at an angle. “M.R.D. Mutant Response Division. It’s our job to clean up the mess when mutants go bad.”

“Does that include terrifying children?” he asked, voice oddly judgment free, despite his words.

“If necessary. Their power usually comes on at puberty, but not always. I’ve seen some horror shows, let me tell you. You know what happens when a horny teenager suddenly gains the power to subliminally control everyone around him? Or an abused kid turns out to literally explode when they get angry? Or—“

“If I was susceptible to sob stories, I’d have stayed with the weeping families,” he interrupted her.

“And what are you susceptible too?” she asked.

“Reasoned argument and information. You want me to talk? Give me the information I need to make a reasoned choice.”

“And the reason I shouldn’t gas you unconscious and take your tech toys?”

“The simplest is that I’ve rigged my equipment to explode, taking out this building and most of the block, depending on how hardened the building is.”

She stared at him for a long moment, trying to weigh if he was bluffing or not. The man was completely unreadable. 

“That would kill you as well.”

“Yes.” 

“I have to say, it sounds like you’re attempting to convince me to give you access to MRD files. Which is exactly what a mutant spy would seek.”

“If I were a spy, I would not have brought my technology. Or at least not all of it. Ask your agents who were there when I appeared, I’ve brought all my…toys.”

“What information would convince you?”

“An organization is only as good as its ideals and its enemies.”

She smiled and passed over the not-quite-randomly chosen files. “A dozen of our worst. Let me know what you think.”

He sat down and picked through the files carefully, and in order, reading each page slowly before going on to the next. Despite the horrors she knew were in those files, pictures and text alike dripping with pain and nightmarish cruelty, his face didn’t change, nor did his body language. Polite interest was all he showed as he worked his way through them over the course of almost twenty minutes. 

When he finally looked up, his eyes narrowed. “Do you find sexual violence more disturbing than other forms, or is it truly the case that your worst are always rapists?”

She considered the question for a moment. “Those are the ones we dealt with, usually because their powers were new. It usually happens around puberty. Hormones plus power equals sex crimes.”

He shrugged. “Your enemies being evil does not make you good. Who do you answer to? What oaths and laws bind you?”

“The MRD was created by the United Nations. Our charter was signed by a majority of member nations and all members of the Security Council. We operate only in the nations which signed up and recruit from all their militaries. We are the first line of defense for humanity.”

“I’ll need to see your charter, regulations, basic information and files on your leadership,” he said.

She paused for a moment, considering that she was being pulled along into giving information to the person she was supposed to be interrogating. But nothing he was asking for was classified (at least under certain narrow interpretations of ‘files on your leadership’). 

“That can be done,” she glanced at the one-way glass and gave an order. 

While they waited, he asked a number of basic questions about deployment capabilities and technology, which at least fit with his otherwise ridiculous story. Her attempts to get information out of him in turn met with complete stonewalling. He remained unconvinced that this was not an attempt by his enemies to confuse his mind and extract information, so he was unwilling to share (or so he claimed, given his total unreadability, it was impossible to know if he was telling the truth). 

When the files arrived he, once again, read through them relatively slowly, though he just flipped through the gigantic pile of regulations. Afterward he looked up. “I have several questions, but let’s begin with the obvious. You have a large collection of rules and regulations governing ethics, rules of engagement and prescribing punishments for them. Let’s see the public file on your most high profile violator.”

There was a moment of silence. “Well, there have been several people disciplined or fired for harassment, misappropriating funds, or insubordination.”

“But that’s not what I’m looking for and you know it. Based on the number of agents you apparently have and the number of targets, there should be several people who have gone over the line with targets. Especially given how disturbing you, presumably a fairly standard representative of your organization, clearly find these targets.”

“You want to know if we actually follow our own rules.”

“No organization of any size fails to have people within it who break their rules, for good reasons or bad. I want to know how you punish those who break your rules regarding treatment of your enemies.”

She wracked her brain, trying to come up with a case where an MRD employee had been punished for abusing a mutant and failed. Several had been disciplined or reprimanded for excessive force, but only when that force harmed civilians nearby. 

“I see. Pretty words, but empty.”

She tried to object, but couldn’t. Instead she shifted her ground. “I’m an interrogator, not an ethics counselor. This is all irrelevant to the question at hand.”

“Not at all. I do like to know what I’m getting myself into.”

“Your blood test confirms you aren’t a mutant. No one else has anything to fear from the MRD. If you just hand over your tech—”

The man gave a low laugh. “Oh, no, that was never on the table.”

“Then why—” aggravation made her voice rise, then her eyes narrowed and she reconsidered. “What are you getting yourself into?”

“In accordance with MRD-CFR-12-1-2, Subparagraph B, as a subject of a state which is not a signatory to the MRD Treaty, I would like to volunteer for service.”

She blinked at that and went to the giant book of regulations she’d passed him. It was indeed in there. The MRD recruited only from the military of Treaty Nations, but they accepted volunteers from other nations, if they had the skills. The quick sweep through the gigantic book must have disguised the search for the specific passage he’d wanted. She kept reading. “This entitles you to request to be accepted at the same rank you possess in your native military. Which is?”

“Captain.”

That was surprisingly low for someone of his apparent age, but it was entirely possible he was lying. He had to know they wouldn’t give him any sort of major command and any minor command would be full of spies who were trying to observe and liberate his tech. 

“Hmm…and if ordered to hand over your weapons?”

“MRD-CFR-8-22-1, No member of the MRD can be required to take action against their native government, or contrary to standing orders/regulations/etc. I have standing orders not to hand over my technology or weapons.”

“Wouldn’t have pegged you for a barracks room lawyer.”

“Appearances can be deceiving.”

She nodded at that. “I’ll discuss it with my superiors. Is there anything you’d like while you wait?”

“I am fine. Thank you.”

She headed out, gathering all the papers she’d brought and started to head to the main office. This was going to need a lot of discussion, but she already knew what command’s answer was going to be. Until they had his tech, every bit of it, they’d want him kept close. Give him a team and sooner or later he’d have to let down his guard around them, rely on them, trust them. Then it would all be over.

**Author's Note:**

> End of the second little short in this series. More to come, eventually. Comments always welcome.


End file.
